This week I revisited a strategy that I haven't used in a few years--one that I took from my friend Ryan Goble, creator of Making Curriculum Pop and who is all about making curriculum relevant and engaging to students. I don't believe the strategy, Discussion Moves, is necessarily his own. I think he borrowed it, and perhaps remixed it, from someone else. I say all this to acknowledge that I, like all teachers, found a strategy that someone else created and used it to meet the needs of my students. And now, I'm introducing you all to the strategy...so you can say I found it on TeachWhys who got it from Ryan Goble who got it from someone else!
Okay, so on to the details. Why did I use the strategy? I used to, like a lot of teachers, just assume that my students know how to hold a discussion. And most of my discussions were teacher-driven. This means that I asked the questions I thought were relevant about the text or topic and a few students responded. This call-and-response pattern would last a few minutes and I would pat myself on the back and say that we had held a discussion. What had really happened was that a few of my highly-engaged students would engage in dialogue with me--not each other--and the rest of my students would sit back and let it happen, glad that someone else was helping pass the time. This doesn't mean that those who didn't speak were all of task. On the contrary, many would be attentively listening. But I never knew what they were thinking. And of course, I would make that teacher move of calling on someone who wasn't speaking to invite them into the conversation, but really all this did was make them a bit uncomfortable--and it forced them to answer MY questions. There was little room for them to ask their own. Asking their own questions certainly wasn't discouraged, but I definitely did not have the structure in place to encourage their questions, either.
When I recognized this happening, I began to explore Socratic Circles. My friend Matt Copeland had written a book on how to conduct these student-centered discussions, and it was a game-changer for my teaching practice. (If you're not sure how to begin with Socratic Circles, I think this is still a good read.) I had finally figured out how to help students dig into the questions they had about our texts and class topics. But meaningful conversations don't happen magically. We still have to teach students HOW to discuss and WHY their moves in a discussion matter.
This is where the Discussion Moves handout can help. The handout breaks down 13 moves that occur naturally in productive discussion. It demonstrates the importance of building on each other's ideas, making space for others to contribute, and even actively listening. Like think alouds do for reading, discussion moves make visible the invisible strategies good discussants use. This semester I have a quiet class, so I knew that as I prepared for our first discussion around literature I needed to equip them with the tools they need to have productive discussions the rest of the semester. And that's when I dug into the depths of my computer and found that old file.
How did it work? I have a class of 28, so I made three copies of the moves and cut each into a strip. Sitting in one large circle, each student drew a move and during the course of the discussion, they were required to make their move at least once. They weren't limited to that move. If they were natural discussants, they were free to use their own toolbox of moves. Then, I posted several questions that I thought might help them start the discussion, and I stepped out of the circle. As I explained to the students, they were responsible for the direction of the discussion. They could use the posted questions, or they could formulate their own. I would not be a part of the circle because there is a tendency for students to want to talk to me and not their peers. And so it began without me. And at times there was silence, but this silence often invited students to make their move. Was this discussion as strong as the one I expect to see in April? No, but it was a great first step.
It's important to note, that we didn't stop with the discussion. Instead, I saved time at the end of the class to debrief. It's through the debrief that the strategy really works. Here, each student shared what their move was and how they made it. It helped them articulate the impact the move had on the discussion. There were also students who didn't make their move, but the debrief time gave them a space to talk about why they struggled with making the move and gave me and the rest of the class insights into the goals we needed to set for the class to help the overcome the barriers to making this move in future discussions. I will keep these goals in mind as we approach our first Socratic Circle next week. And now these moves are ones that outer circle can turn to when giving tips on how to continue to improve the discussion. They can now see WHY their moves matter. If you'd like to adapt this strategy for your own class, check out the Resources page for a link to the uploaded PDF.
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